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Monday, April 7, 2014

Lecture series covers NSA, surveillance, pursuit of peace and healing after 9/11

NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake and peace activist Army Col.
Ann Wright, retired, are coming to Salt Lake Community College as one of
several stops in Utah during the Peace Advocacy Coalition’s 2014 lecture
series.

Drake will speak on “The National Security Agency (NSA) and
Our Constitutional Rights” on April 11, 9 a.m. in the new Instruction and
Administration Building (IAB), Room 135, at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus.

Photo cred: www.publicradiotulsa.org

Wright will speak about “Pursuing Peace: Healing 9/11” on
April 17, 10 a.m. in the new Instruction and Administration Building (IAB),
Room 135, at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus.

“We bring them to SLCC as part of our goal of both engaging
with the larger community on important issues and of educating the SLCC
community, including our students, about what it means to be active and
knowledgeable citizens of a democratic society and an increasingly globalized
world,” said SLCC’s Dr. John McCormick, dean of SLCC’s School of Humanities and
Social Sciences. “In that effort, nothing is more important than addressing
issues of peace, nonviolence, and human rights.”

Drake, whose Wikipedia page reads like an outline for a John
Grisham novel, is a decorated veteran of the Air Force and Navy, as well as a
former senior executive for the NSA. He is now an outspoken critic of NSA
policies and what he calls the “surveillance state.” While still with the NSA
Drake’s relationship with the media and his leaks of declassified information
about the $1 billion Trailblazer Project, a controversial program designed to
gather intelligence that the NSA Inspector General declared a failure, led to
an FBI raid on his home and a federal indictment in 2010.

From Twitter.

At one point Drake, maligned by the NSA and government
prosecutors, was working in an Apple store. Eventually, charges related his
whistleblowing, which could have resulted in 35 years in prison, were dropped
in a deal where Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misusing the
NSA’s computer system. In 2011 he was presented with the Ridenhour Prize for
Truth-Telling and he shared the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in
Intelligence award.

Wright served in the Army for 29 years and then worked for
the U.S. State Department for 16 years, during which time her work in Sierra
Leone earned her the “Award for Heroism” from her employer. But in 2003 she
publicly resigned her position in the State Department in protest against the
U.S. invasion in Iraq and the curtailment of civil liberties in this country.

After resigning Wright has gone on to campaign for peace and
justice around the world, protesting against drone warfare and the oppression
of Palestinians and against the development of nuclear weapons. She has been
arrested several times for her feisty protests, one in which she disrupted a
Senate Armed Services Committee meeting. She co-authored the book DISSENT: Voices of Conscience, Government
Insiders Speak Out Against the War In Iraq.

About SLCC

Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) is the largest higher education institution with the most diverse student body in Utah. The College serves more than 60,000 students in credit and non-credit courses at 13 locations throughout the Salt Lake Valley, including online class options. Even with its large student body, students don’t get lost in the ‘shuffle’ because SLCC’s student to faculty ratio is just 20 to 1. Since 1948, SLCC has focused on providing individual attention and personal care to each student.